Calendar and tasks retention tags with the release of Exchange 2010 SP2 rollup 4

Till Exchange  2010 SP2 rollup 3 assigning a retention tags to either calendar or tasks items were not feasible. Now , With the release of Exchange 2010 SP2 rollup 4 and to continue maintaining compliance requirements ,the assignment of retentions tags to both calendar and tasks folders items become feasible.

Exchange 2010 SP2 with rollup 4 allows the following :

• Creating of retention tags using Exchange Management Shell ( EMS ) that can be used to alter items at both calendar and tasks folders
• Using of Default Policy Tags ( DPTs ) to move / delete items from calendar and tasks folders

By knowing that , deploying of Exchange 2010 SP2 rollup 4 can be accomplished using different techniques :

I. If you don’t want to implement specific retention tags for tasks and calendar items or don’t mind applying DPTs settings to your calendar and tasks items , go and install rollup 4 directly.

II. If you want to keep the same behavior for calendar and tasks items as that prior rollup 4 ( No retention tags allowed for calendar and tasks items ) , add a registry key to your mailbox servers prior deploying of Exchange 2010 SP2 rollup 4 . The value can be created by executing the below command at an elevated command line :

RegAdd “HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeMailboxAssistants\Parameters” /V ELCAssistantCalendarTaskRetentionEnabled /t Reg_DWORD /d 0 /f

III. If you want Calendar and Tasks folders to expire at a different interval than Default Policy Tags ( DPTs ) , you can follow the following steps:

• Place all mailboxes on Retention Hold , by executing the below command at an elevated EMS :

Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox -RetentionHoldEnabled $true

• Apply Exchange 2010 SP2 RU4 to your Mailbox servers.
• Create RPTs for Calendar and Tasks folders with the desired retention settings ( Using Exchange Management Shell ).
• Inform users about the changes.
• When ready, remove the retention hold from mailboxes , by executing the below command at an elevated EMS :

Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox -RetentionHoldEnabled $false

Additionally , you can also read on how to :

1. Create a retention tag : Here
2. Create a retention policy : Here
3. Apply a retention policy to mailbox(es) : Here